[lbo-talk] The "Rational" Voter

Shane Mage shmage at pipeline.com
Sat Mar 24 10:42:56 PDT 2007


This whole debate (should Dumbocratic antiwar voters support Kucinich--or Sharpton--in primary elections) seems to be premised on ignorance of the fact that the Dumbocratic primaries choose delegates by a form of proportional representation, not the old winner-takes-all method that gave their nomination to the truly unelectable McGovern in 1972. So if they truly cared about their "anti-war" professions of faith their votes would have some effectiveness in the actual election where they are voting as well as representing a statement of political choice. Anyone who votes for a "lesser evil" in such a convention-delegate election is truly committing political idiocy in the first degree.

Shane Mage

"This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures."

Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 30


> > Here's the supreme irony. Those who won't vote for Kucinich
>> because they think he can't win justify that decision on the
>> grounds of "not throwing your vote away," "supporting someone with
>> a chance to win," or "casting an effective vote." All of these
>> justifications reject voting as an expressive act ("the ballot as a
>> place to make a statement") in favor of voting as a causally
>> efficacious act. But a moment's reflection will reveal that one's
>> individual vote has zero causal effect. Not only is it
>> extraordinarily unlikely that an election will be decided by one
>> vote, but given the uncertainties of any vote-counting mechanism,
>> one's vote is necessarily within the statistical margin of vote-
>> counting error. It is therefore IRRATIONAL to vote in order to
>> have an effect, an a fortiori irrational to vote (on grounds of
>> causal efficacy) for a candidate who has a chance rather than a
>> candidate who does not. Ironically, those who invoke instrumental
>> rationality as the reason for voting as they do are the most
>> deluded of all. The argument for not voting is very strong. The
>> argument for voting as an expressive act is much weaker, though
>> perhaps viable. But no one should vote because they think their
>> vote makes a difference, and no one should vote under the sway of
>> the flawed argument that voting for one candidate has an effect
>> while voting for another does not.
>
>Michael McIntyre
>
>>
>>
>> On Mar 23, 2007, at 5:01 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>>
>>> Dennis Kucinich will be on the ballot in the DP caucuses and
>>> primaries, but most "anti-war" DP voters won't vote for him. I
>>> conclude that they don't have the courage of their convictions.
>>
>> You make it sound like a moral failing, or some sort of other
>> personal defect. Most people sympathetic with Kucinich's politics
>> think he doesn't have a prayer - not merely of winning, but even
>> scoring above 5%. Yes, that's self-fulfilling, but unlike a lot of
>> leftists, many voters don't think of the ballot as a place to make a
>> statement, but as a way of supporting someone with a chance to win.
>> Until you can change that perception, which means changing reality to
>> at least some degree, what you see as individual moral failings will
>> keep repeating themselves.
>>
>> Doug
>
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